


That Sweet Enemy

by hellabaloo



Category: Football RPF
Genre: (just a wee bit), FC Barcelona, Falling In Love, German National Team, M/M, Real Madrid CF, Rivalry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-12
Updated: 2018-05-12
Packaged: 2019-05-02 20:54:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14553339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellabaloo/pseuds/hellabaloo
Summary: Toni doesn’t give a shit about the Real Madrid-Barcelona rivalry. Sure, he always wants to beat them, but he always wants to beat everyone. It doesn’t make Barcelonaspecial.But there’s something about having Marc’s entire focus being on him whenever they get into it that he can’t stop bringing it up.





	That Sweet Enemy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [meggiewrites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/meggiewrites/gifts).



> Happy Spring Fling, Meggie! I hope you like this as much as I liked writing it :)
> 
> I’m playing somewhat fast and loose with la Liga’s schedule, how it and the international breaks lined up this past season as well as the lineups for the early WC qualification rounds For Dramatic Reasons, but I’m trying to keep the timeline generally in the same ballpark. Playing the same game, at least, I promise. Apologies for the google translate Spanish - please let me know if something’s terribly wrong.
> 
> Shoutout to ascience for inadvertently helping me write the omake. 
> 
> **Additional Content Notes:** Irreverent reference to the Spanish Civil War and Catalan Independence, because Barcelona-Madrid and we can’t have nice things.

 

.

 

“¡Hijo de PUTA! La CONCHA de tu—”

The sudden, and incredibly loud, outburst in Spanish from over where the keepers were training separately from the rest of the national team drew every pair of eyes on the field in weird unison. Marc ter Stegen was fishing a ball from the back of the net, the scowl on his face visible even at a distance. Where before there had been chattering between teammates as they went through their conditioning drills, a hush settled over the group; of course Thomas Müller was the one to break it.

“Hey! Hey! No Spanish!” he yelled, wagging his finger at ter Stegen like a schoolmarm. 

Marc gave him a two-fingered salute as best as he was able with his gloves on, but largely ignored them and Leno, who was trying to talk to him.

“You gotta admit though, swearing in Spanish just sounds sound much more...” Shkodran started, finishing his sentence by waving his hands in front of him that Toni thought was mean to convey something profound.

“What? Stupid?” Thomas asked with a snorting laugh and a gaping smile. 

“No, come on, Thomas. It’s much more _angry_ in Spanish. Like there’s a real oomph to it. Spanish swear words are better than German ones. For sure.” Shkodran nodded to himself, convinced he’d made his point before running off to complete the next part of the drill. 

“I will not accept that. German is the only language anyone needs,” Thomas carried on for his captive audience while in line to start the drill.

“Well, it’s a good thing you’re still stuck at Bayern, then,” Toni deadpanned, leaning into the space between Mats and Thomas ahead of him in line.

“Ha, stuck at Bayern. Like that’s the worst thing ever. To play for the best club in the world.”

“Sure,” Toni said, drawing out the vowel as long as possible. “Keep telling yourself that. Who has the most Champions League trophies? Oh, who’s that? Real Madrid? Why can’t Bayern ever make it past Spanish teams?”

“Hey, Marc!” Thomas yelled, skipping into his turn at the drill. “Toni’s talking shit about Barcelona again—”

A shrill whistle from Jogi cut off Toni’s half-formed protests as Thomas laughed his way through the rest of the drill. 

“If you’re talking, you’re not working hard enough. 5 more circuits.”

Everyone groaned before getting back to work. Toni might have heard Mats mumbling about getting revenge on Thomas for making them do extra drills, but he couldn’t be sure. He'd ask if he could help when they were done.

 

.

 

Toni was at breakfast the next morning when a voice piped up on his right.

“So what were you saying about Barça?”

He had been leaning toward the conversation about Nike versus Adidas on his other side, not really participating, but throwing in important commentary when he thought it was necessary. Toni peered over his shoulder to see Marc ter Stegen staring intensely at him. Toni swallowed and absently wondered why his throat was suddenly dry and he could feel a rising heat in his cheeks.

He coughed, hoping his voice wouldn’t crack like some barely-grown teenager. “I didn’t hear you, what?”

“What were you saying about Barça?” Marc said, neatly pausing after every word like Toni was stupid or something. 

“Goddamnit, I’m gonna kill Thomas,” Toni muttered, rolling his eyes, his earlier discomfort forgotten in a flash on annoyance. Turning to face Marc, he said clearly, “What are you on the Mundo Deportivo payroll now? I wasn’t saying shit about you culés.”

Marc kept his gaze level and didn’t blink. It might have been kind of freaky, if Toni wasn’t lost in just how blue Marc’s eyes were. Whatever Marc was looking for, he seemed to find it.

“Okay,” he said. With a small shrug of his shoulders he went back to stirring together his müsli and yogurt, content to ignore Toni in favor of the food in front of him. 

Toni blinked.

When the Madrid-Barcelona shit got started, it never ended so simply. But Marc seemed to have taken him at his word and decided that was that. 

What this fuck was going on here?

“I was trying to tell him that Madrid was better than Bayern Munich,” Toni said, the words tumbling out of him. Marc turned to look at him, his cheeks puffed out as he chewed. Now that he'd started, Toni barreled on. “And he just didn’t want to accept facts and tried to weasel out of it by making it into one of those Madrid-Barcelona...rivalry...things.”

Marc snorted and Toni tried to convince himself he was not distracted by the way Marc’s adam’s apple bobbed has swallowed. 

“Right,” Marc said, drawing out the vowel sarcastically long and rolling his eyes for good measure. “The team in eighth place. Who lost to Betis. At the Bernabeu. That’s the best team in the world.”

Now this was more like it. Toni was on safer ground bantering than wherever the fuck he had just been.

“Not our finest moment, I’ll grant you,” he said, flashing his best press interview smile. “It’s still early and it’s not like we’re going to stay there. I bet you when we get back to the league we’ll be up to third place after the weekend, easy.”

He paused before continuing, but it seemed like Marc’s teasing wasn’t going any further. “And come on, you had to turn it into one of those rivalry things. Fuck, I love coming back to Germany to escape that bullshit.”

“You’re delusional about the league. But you’re right about the bullshit”

Toni ignored the sudden fluttering in his stomach at Marc’s words, spoken with easy camaraderie and a small half-smile that barely lifted the corner of Marc’s mouth, and focused on the insult instead. 

It was easier that way. 

“I’m hardly delusional—” Toni started, before being interrupted by Thomas shouting from the far end of the cafeteria table.

“No one cares about Spain, talk about something else for once.”

“You’re just jealous, Thomas,” Marc said loudly, pitching his voice to easily carry across the room like all keepers seemed to do when organizing their defense.

“How many times do I have to swear to you I’m not?”

Now it was Toni’s turn to roll his eyes. “You’re the one that came up with the no Spanish rule. El Míster doesn’t care.”

“How can I be expected to forge stronger bonds with my teammates if they’re too busy talking all that gibberish. Speak German like civilized men.”

“ _You_ can’t even speak German properly,” Mats said matter-of-factly, reaching for more coffee.

Toni turned back to Marc and shared a grin, while Thomas spluttered before launching into a speech on the nature of Bavarian grammar and imperialism from Berlin that lasted well into the afternoon training session.

 

.

 

The day after their qualification match against Northern Ireland, the team was back on their temporary training grounds, going through a recovery workout. It was more about injury prevention than tactics, and Jogi was going easy on them.

As they jogged measuredly in a group around the perimeter of the field, Marc fell in near Toni. But his long strides easily kept him in front of Toni. 

Once he was firmly ahead of Toni for an entire lap, he turned and, running backward, with a shit-eating grin and said, “¡Oye, Kroos! Mi abuela corre más rápido que tú.” 

“Cállate, pendejo,” Toni said without bite, shoving Marc out of the pack who laughed as he stumbled. He heard laughter from behind them, and turned to see Mesut and Shkodran both shaking their heads at them.

“Hey, what’s so funny?” Thomas asked loudly.

“Nothing,” Toni said, knowing Thomas would never just let it drop. If there was a joke, he needed to be in on it.

Of course the next thing he heard was Thomas stage-whispering to Mesut to ask for an explanation.

Toni didn’t catch what Mesut said, but it left Thomas with a shocked and vaguely offended tilt to his mouth that hung open. Served him right. 

“Shouldn’t you be mocking me in Catalan?” Toni asked a few minutes' silence.

Marc threw his head back and laughed again. He leaned into Toni, their shoulders bumping together as they jogged, and waggled his eyebrows. “What’s the point of insulting you if you can’t understand me?

This time as he punched Marc on the arm, he desperately tried to ignore the curl of longing in his gut at the sound.

 

.

 

They were lined up in the tunnel for the match against Azerbaijan, Thomas led the way as captain. Toni knew he wouldn’t play more than the first half; the training staff had let him know to expect a substitution at half-time if not before. Jogi was using the matches against teams that are clearly not going to qualify for the World Cup to tinker with the lineup and get a feel for the new crop of players just promoted from the youth squads. They'd said all the right things to the press about respecting their opponents, but it annoyed Toni that he couldn't just say the fucking truth that everyone in room knew—the Azerbaijan national team might have a chance against their U-19’s, but not the first team. Even if it was filled with babies just barely out of the U-21’s.

Marc, dressed for the bench, came up to him and gave him a quick dap.

“Whattup, separatist,” Toni said.

“How’s it going, Francoist,” Marc returned with one of half-smiles that Toni was beginning to recognize as Marc trying not to let on just how funny he thought something was.

Kimmich and Sané go quiet beside them, suddenly incredibly interested in the state of their boots. 

“Isn’t that going a little far, guys?” Kimmich asked them, eyes earnest and so fucking young.

Toni couldn't’ help but guffaw. “That is hardly the worst a culé has ever called me.” 

“Besides, it is kinda funny. In, like, a morbid way, I guess,” Marc said with a casual shrug of his shoulders. He moved along the line, dapped up Leno before heading out of the tunnel and to his seat in the dugout.

“Spain makes you fucking weird,” Sané muttered and Toni laughed. 

“That’s not even the half of it,” he said, clapping his teammate on the shoulder as they began to process out onto the field.

 

.

 

They’d played three rounds of FIFA on Mats’ Playstation—as Mats’ roommate Toni had claimed the right, especially with Mats off somewhere with Thomas—but now the start screen looped endlessly in the background while Marc and Toni lounged on Toni’s bed asking each other embarrassing questions.

He hadn’t done this—share silly hopes and dreams and stupid stories from training—since the first time he’d been promoted to the first team, back before they'd won the World Cup and weren’t yet so cynical about some of the harsher realities of their sport. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but there was something about Marc's presence that made him feel safe sharing things he'd never actually said out loud to anyone else before.

After a lull in the conversation, they slipped into a surprisingly comfortable silence. Drawing irregular patterns on the the hotel bed's covers, Toni ran with an idle thought and asked, “Who’s your closest friend?”

“My brother, why?” Marc answered, craning his neck around to face Toni.

He couldn’t waste the opportunity and smacked Marc in the face with his pillow. Marc took it from him and threw it right back at him. Toni caught it before it mashed into his face and began absent-mindedly worrying a loose thread at the corner.

“On the team, idiot. The national team.”

Marc shrugged his shoulders. “I dunno. Never really thought about it. Bernd maybe?”

Toni laughed at the image of the two of them together. “The same Bernd Leno that you had a years-long feud with?”

“It wasn’t a feud,” Marc mumbled, the beginnings of a flush sitting high on his cheekbones. “And we’re over it anyway.”

“Seriously, Marc.” Toni pestered him for an answer, digging his toes into the muscle of Marc’s thigh.

“Why do you want to know so bad anyway?” Marc asked. After joking with him about the Madrid Barcelona rivalry and bugging Thomas together by speaking Spanish in his presence whenever possible, Toni was better at reading Marc. But it seemed like he had retreated back behind that carefully neutral expression of his. Toni’s gut twisted with some unexamined fear.

“No reason,” he said, unwilling to meet Marc's eyes and going for nonchalant. He wasn't sure he succeeded.

Toni had seen Marc flit from group to group, but hadn’t ever considered that maybe he didn’t have any close friends on the national team. It was hard for the keepers, Toni knew, always half-removed from the rest of the team—unless you were Manu and half of your club teammates also happened to play for your national team. He wanted to reach out to Marc, to do _something_ , but before he could Marc stood and grabbed his training jacket from where he’d thrown it over a chair hours ago.

“I’m going to bed,” he said.

There was a pause like he was waiting for Toni to do something, but Toni didn’t want to fuck whatever this was that had been building between them and he didn’t move except to tilt his head up at Marc and smile.

“See ya.”

Toni pointedly did not think about the sudden clench in his gut as the hotel door closed with a terrifying finality. Or how it eased when he rolled onto the spot where Marc had been sitting and he could still feel his warmth lingering. He stayed there, splayed awkwardly across his bed, looking up at the ceiling and trying to not think of Marc’s small, self-deprecating smile as he shrugged his shoulders or the resigned look in his eyes. Toni only moved when he heard Mats’ keycard open the door and then scrambled to a half-way normal sitting position.

Mats blinked at him, but said nothing.

Toni blew out a breath that ruffled his flattened bangs and stood up, mumbling an excuse about brushing his teeth. 

He was so fucked.

 

.

 

They didn't really talk while they were in Spain. It was just easier that way. 

When they were with the national team they were German first. In Spain, they were either Madrid or Barcelona; no hope for common ground between them. 

It was also easier to avoid questions from noisy teammates.

Sometimes they texted. Little insignificant things that didn't require much response, if any. Toni usually sent memes and tweets from fans more than a little off their rockers. Marc sent articles with dry-witted takedowns of whatever transfer rumor the rags were peddling this week.

They had a system and it worked for them. Mostly.

After the way they left things during the international break, Toni started calling Marc. He didn't think too much about the why and just dialed Marc’s number after training one day.

The first call was full of awkward pauses and false-starts. One of Marc’s teammates, one of the Brazilians Toni thought, was at his house and yelling at Marc to stop speaking German. Toni smiled at the weird mirror image of Thomas. The call didn't last very long, but Marc promised to call him back at a better time.

For a day, Toni thought this was just them reverting back to how it always was, how it had to be, when they were with their clubs. He in the spotless white of Madrid, and Marc was nothing but a swirl of azulgrana. But then Marc called back and they fell into an easy routine. 

Toni called after training to tell Marc stories about his teammates. Marc called on the weekend, timing it around their respective matches, when they both had some time to talk. 

Sometimes, it didn't even feel like there was any distance between them at all.

 

.

 

He knew Barcelona were in town for a match against Getafe, but Toni was surprised to he hear his doorbell ring and found Marc standing on his doorstep.

“I told them I’d take a different flight back,” Marc said without preamble.

“And they let out, unsupervised, in enemy territory?” Toni asked with mock scandal, his hand flying up to his chest to clutch invisible pearls.

“Some of us are trustworthy,” Marc said with that funny half-smile of his and Toni stepped aside to let him into his house with a grin of his own.

Marc dropped his overnight bag in the hallway and bent down to unlace his shoes properly. Toni snorted at the sight, because of course Marc wouldn't just kick off his shoes like a normal person. Marc followed Toni like a shadow and they settled onto Toni’s ridiculously large sofa.

They played a game of FIFA mostly in silence, not even bothering to trash talk each other much. The longer Marc sat on his couch, close but not touching, close enough for Toni to feel the warmth radiating from Marc but too far away to do anything about it, the tighter the knot in Toni’s stomach twisted. He conceded defeat and tossed the controller away and looked at Marc like he hadn’t since the international break. 

For all he lived in Spain and was outside almost everyday, Marc was still pale—his skin almost creamy. He noticed the scrutiny, but Toni wasn't ashamed at having been caught looking and held his gaze steady.

“What?” Marc asked quietly.

“Nothing. I thought you’d look out of place here. But. You don’t.”

“Okay,” Marc said with a laugh, his smile genuine and wide this time. “So, how is fourth place treating you? When’s the second clasico? Watch us have the league all sewn up, and you'll get to give us a guard of honor.”

“Hey now, fourth still gets us Champions League next year,” Toni said, punching Marc in the thigh. “Haven’t you heard? That’s all we care about.”

He sounded bitter to his own ears and it wasn't surprising when Marc’s smile faded. Toni knew he understood everything that went into the press in Spain—the rumors, the inside sources, the witch hunts to find the problem to explain away a poor season when really there was no single thing to fix but an entire host of things that had built and built and built. Everyone always wanted the problem to be simple, something to be fixed just by throwing more money at it and it would go away like it had never been there in the first place.

And now that he’d started, Toni found he couldn’t stop. “Shit. It's just. At least they're not whistling and waving white flags at us this year. And this summer is gonna be shit, with the World Cup and Perez chasing after the flavor of the tournament. But if we don't win the Champions League...”

He trailed off into silence and slumped his shoulders. For a moment there was complete silence. Then the couch cushions rustled as Marc moved and Toni found himself enveloped in a hug. Marc’s hand moved to the back of his neck, blunt fingernails scraping through his short hair. Toni’s arms came up and grabbed Marc around the middle and he rested his head on Marc’s shoulder.

Toni sighed into the soft fabric of Marc’s shirt and collapsed in on himself a little to make himself fit better into Marc’s arms. He wasn’t that much smaller than Marc, but it felt so nice to be held like he was something fragile.

He knew this moment couldn’t last forever, and, reluctantly, Toni released his hold on Marc and stood up from the couch. He began to turn away before Marc reached out, lightning-quick with those shot-stopper’s instincts and caught his wrist in a tight grip, holding him there. Distantly, Toni thought of how easily one of Marc’s hands wrapped itself around his wrist. He shivered as he felt Marc’s calloused thumb rub slowly against the soft skin on the inside of his wrist, back and forth in a hypnotizing rhythm. 

“Marc?”

Marc seemed surprised at Toni's unasked question and looked between Toni and his own hand still holding Toni’s wrist.

“I—” Marc started to say, but stopped and swallowed. He didn’t let go of Toni and it gave Toni an idea.

 _Fuck it_ , he thought.

Toni moved impulsively, shooting forward and kissed Marc. He had a vague impression of Marc’s eyes widening, his eyebrows shooting up in surprise but then he was kissing right Toni back. Toni shivered as Marc’s teeth scraped along his jaw. He sank down to straddle Marc’s thighs and Marc's hands moved automatically to Toni’s waist. Toni could feel the strength in them, holding him there. He wondered idly if he could get Marc to really hold him down.

“I need—” Marc rasped, and oh what an ego stroke it was for Toni to think he’d already reduced Marc to incomprehensible half-sentences. But if it was anything like what Toni had been thinking, they needed to move this to a bed, and soon.

“Yeah,” he said standing and pulling Marc with him. He paused to kiss Marc’s fluttering pulse and reached around to grab a handful of his ass.

They stumbled down the hall, Toni walking them deliberately to his room where they fell together onto the bed in a tangle of limbs.

 

.

 

Afterward, when they lay tangled in Toni’s sheets, utterly spent and reveling in each other’s nakedness, Toni rolled over and rested his chin in his hands to observe Marc. He was on his back, but watched Toni situate himself before he reached out a tentative hand. He ran his finger along the length of Toni’s shoulder blade and down his side. If Toni were ticklish, he might be tempted to kick Marc. But he wasn't and there was a reverence to the way Marc’s hands ghosted along his skin. Like he was trying to remember every detail.

“So. About that guard of honor,” Marc said, a wicked smile lifting the corner of his mouth.

Toni rolled his eyes. “Oh, I see how it is. Take advantage of me in my vulnerable state. It's not like I make those decisions. Go seduce Perez and the board,” he said, and this time he did kick Marc. “We'll win the Champions League again this year, and you should give us a guard of honor at the Supercopa.”

Marc snorted, but he was smiling. “You don’t deserve an honor guard until you’ve won the treble. And you haven’t. We’ve done it twice, by the way.”

“How is it that no one else thinks you're an asshole?” 

“It's all for you, baby,” Marc said with an-honest-to-goodness leer and ridiculous wink.

Toni let out a bark of laughter. “Fuck, you're terrible. But I know of a way you can make it up to me.”

He rolled Marc on top of him, stretching out and feeling every inch of where their naked bodies were touching. 

Marc’s eyes darkened and he grinned. “Do you now?”

 

 

.

 

Omake: Marc and Toni on The Messi vs Ronaldo Debate

 

.

 

“Cris doesn’t eat meals anymore. He has a personal chef that calibrates the nutrition he needs and makes him different performance shakes everyday.”

“Only more proof he’s a cyborg. Leo will spend all of practice kicking your shins if he finds out you have chocolate and won’t give it to him.”

“We’ve been over this, Marc. Even if Cris were an enhanced being, there’s no rule that says a cyborg can’t play football.”

.

“Cris makes like $30 million in endorsements alone this year. Way more than Messi.”

“He may make less, but at least Leo doesn’t have to cheapen his brand by putting out things like generic men’s fragrances.”

“Hey, now. Don’t knock it ‘til you try it. Legacy is a surprisingly refreshing scent.”

.

"CR7’s got the craziest workout routine. He has to do a thousand crunches after training. How do you think he got those abs?"

"Leo has never done a single crunch in his life, he was given his physique by God."

"You know, Marc, it needs to be at least half-believable if we’re going to keep playing this game."

 

.

 

 

Notes:

1\. Spanish translation: "Hey Kroos! My grandma runs faster than you!" "Shut up, asshole."

2\. Toni thinks of Barcelona colors' as azulgrana instead of blaugrana because that's the more proper Spanish term, even if it's not the correct Catalan blaugrana.

3\. Pretty sure a player can't just not travel with the team, BUT THIS IS FIC.

(more to follow after author reveals)

 

.

 

 


End file.
